If Only
by Duskwraithe
Summary: Slash! Draco muses about Harry, and himself, in the hospital wing...


(This takes place in the hospital wing in that one part in the Chamber of Secrets where Draco and Harry are both there. May be slightly AU because I haven't read or seen it in a while; I don't remember if they spent the night there or Pomfrey said Draco could go. Anyway, I don't own any of them, not even the hospital wing.)  
  
My arm is throbbing. I couldn't get to sleep to save my life. There's nothing to do but sit here and watch Potter sleep. I try not to, but it's irresistible. He looks so innocent and peaceful- two things my life has never been.  
  
His hair is messed up like it always is, and in the pale moonlight I can see the scar on his forehead. How often have I stared at it when he didn't see me; how often I have felt almost... jealous. Yes, Draco Malfoy, jealous of Harry Potter. He's so famous and loved by everybody; they know him as the Boy Who Lived. I'm well known as the school bully and hated by everyone except the idiotic Slytherins. And it doesn't get me anywhere; if I wanted friends they don't want me, if I did something nice they'd throw it back in my face. Even if I wanted to be anything but the stuck up git that I act like, they'd laugh at me.  
  
This Potter here has got everything he's ever wanted. He's defeated the Dark Lord more than once and never once has he bragged about it. He's got those stupid friends of his that are always there to back him up and he's had everything he'd ever asked for.  
  
I've been pacing the deserted hospital wing, and now find myself standing over his bed. He's so... beautiful, I guess. I've never had anything in my life to use that word on, but the boy sleeping here in this bed has been that all along, and I've done nothing but bully him from the first time we made eye contact.  
  
He's stirring now, but I doubt I'm in any danger of him waking up. He looks like he's having a nightmare. Mumbling words about his mum.  
  
Maybe he hasn't. Maybe he doesn't have everything he ever wanted. His parents were murdered before his very eyes when he was just a baby. He's grown up knowing no family but an abusive family who shoved him in a cupboard most of the time.  
  
His life is so different from mine! Yes, my family's got problems, but he must be so alone. For a moment I was jealous; but I didn't think about how awful his life must really be. If my life were that horrid, I'd be complaining night and day.  
  
He's a good person. Not like me, the spoiled bully feared by the entire school. I can see why they put him in Gryffindor and suddenly I realize that my hate for him and all of Gryffindor was simply because they're better than I am. They're good and brave and everything and I couldn't measure up so I tried to look down my nose at them all. God, what a horrible, selfish, idiotic person I am.  
  
I can't help myself. Malfoy pride shunned, Slytherin pride shunned, I reach out my hand and touch his burning face. His skin really is as soft and perfect as it looks. How long has it been since I first wondered that? And how long has it been since I first wondered the same about his lips?  
  
But he cries out in his dream, and I take my hand away as if it were scorched. He's tossing and turning now, his unintelligible mumbling becoming louder, and I wonder if I ought to wake him up. I grasp his shoulder and gently shake him. He opens his eyes confusedly, and I'm lost in their misty green before I realize how stupid I must look to him.  
  
"Er, you were having a nightmare."  
  
He searched my face; I don't know what he was looking for but I recovered soon enough not to allow him to find it. Finally, he says in a voice slurred by sleep, "Well, sorry if I've kept you awake!"  
  
He rolled over and soon he was breathing deeply again, but this time untainted by nightmares. I rubbed my too wet eyes and dragged myself back to my own cold bed. Look at that. They all hate me, even my own mother. He once had a mother, but at least she loved him and that he can remember. If only his had lived and mine had died for his sake.  
  
If only his parents had lived and I had died. 


End file.
